Professional Mirror, PhD

Professing * Reflecting

Friday, December 28, 2007

Poetry Friday, The Galilee Hitch-Hiker, Part 3

1939

Baudelaire used to cometo our house and watchme grind coffee.That was in 1939and we lived in the slumsof Tacoma.My mother would putthe coffee beans in the grinder.I was a childand would turn the handle,pretending that it was a hurdy-gurdy,and Baudelaire would pretendthat he was a monkey,hopping up and downand holding outa tin cup.

Not much to report from the Deep Red except for far too much family drama. My family is afraid of everything, from Philip Pullman to leftovers. It's exhausting. I am an alien.

Friday, December 21, 2007

Poetry Friday, The Galilee Hitch-Hiker, Part 2

The American Hotel

Baudelaire was sittingin a doorway with a winoon San Francisco's skidrow.The wino was a millionyears old and could rememberdinosaurs.Baudelaire and the winowere drinking Petri Muscatal."One must always be drunk,"said Baudelaire."I live in the American Hotel,"said the wino, "And I canremember dinosaurs.""Be you drunken ceaselessy,"said Baudelaire.

I feel like Brautigan adds a certain sumpin' sumpin' to the holidays, don't you?

Here's my wish for you all for the holiday and the New Year:

Be you drunken ceaselessly--be it on cheap wine, on dinosaurs, on poetry, on beauty, on joy, on love, on life.

Monday, December 17, 2007

A good dream

I was leaving a Radiohead concert with a favorite student as the band was playing their last song, Faust Arp. I could hear the song as he (favorite student) and I stumbled upon an outdoor bazaar with studios in back. I found a studio with all of these incredible fabrics laid out on tables. The woman there told me she could make me anything I wanted out of any of the fabrics. I nodded and went back outside. My student told me he was going to go home and make some homemade "crisps" and read into the night. He pointed out that he was wearing his favorite pants, with a pocket just the right size for his copy of Macbeth, which he had never read but would read tonight. He said he had just finished re-reading Hamlet, and "the thing that no one gets" is that Ophelia, he said, "meets her death with a credible lexical self." I smiled, waved goodbye, and went up to a balcony to watch the crowd. I found Johnny Depp* there, leaning against the railing and smoking. I bummed two cigarettes from him and smoked them slowly, one after the other. He smoked with me. I told him that I wasn't really smoking, that this was a dream. He inhaled, squinted, smiled, nodded, and then laughed the loveliest laugh. I woke up.

*As far as I know, I have never dream-smoked with Johnny Depp before. I think I have to thank Heidi for this bit of subconscious awesomeness, as she is responsible for bringing Depp into my psyche on a weekly (at least) basis.

Friday, December 14, 2007

Poetry Friday, Brautigan rides again

The Galilee Hitch-Hiker, Part 1

Baudelaire wasdriving a Model Aacross Galilee.He picked up ahitch-hiker namedJesus who hadbeen standing amonga school of fish,feeding thempieces of bread."Where are you going?" askedJesus, gettinginto the frontseat."Anywhere, anywhereout of this world!"shoutedBaudelaire."I'll go with youas far asGolgotha,"said Jesus."I have aconcessionat the carnivalthere, and I must not be late."

'Tis the season of light blogging, but I feel I have been especially lax. Some reasons: 1. My courses and related projects have been super-intense this semester. It was not only the load, which was weighty, but also the nature of the material and the kinds of students I had. All of this was good, though. Incredibly energy-sucking but good. 2. Because of the courses I taught this semester, the grading is especially heavy and time-consuming. I am not just in the local grading clink. I'm in the big house, baby. 3. I have a whole slew of unbloggable things that I am trying to render bloggable, including a. teaching/research stuff, which I generally do not discuss here; b. some people acting like big jerks in old, predictable ways that are so far too annoying and ultimately too tedious to discuss at any length; c. sweet sweet stupid crushes, which are sweet sweet and stupid; and d. my total lack of depression this fall and winter, which I cannot quite wrap my head around and which I feel like if I might jinx if I try to. So I may be blogging any or all of these, once I get gated out of the whoscow.

"The Galilee Hitch-Hiker" is a nine-part poem, by the way, so at least there will be Brautigan (and Baudelaire) for weeks to come.

Thursday, December 06, 2007

And now for the out-loud rants, or secret messages to assholes

Warning: What follows is pretty harsh, even for me. It's the end of the semester. I am tired. I am angry. I am bitter. The filter is off. I am the Medusa Grinch who stole Christmas. Whatever. Sometimes you have to let it fly.

2. To Oprah and Mitch Albom, you emotionally manipulative critically challenged fools, for reminding me of how desperately I mourn those I have traumatically and suddenly lost, with your idiotic promo for this sentimental schlock, For One More Day: "What if you had one more day with someone you'd lost?". Gee. I'd never really thought about that like 8 million times before. Thanks and happy fucking holidays!

3. To the Fuckwits on the second floor from the the crazy lady in the attic and the couple with the newborn baby on the first floor: "Oh, you came home from a week's vacation and shoved all the rotten food in your fridge down your disposal? And it ended up backing up the first floor's sink and causing new mom and dad to have to pay a plumber $300+ and clean up all night? But you are not responsible for the bill because the actual clog ended up in a common pipe? What? That's just the way it's written in the condo docs, so it's not your responsibility? Oh, okay! And sorry to 'gang up on you' to ask you to pay for a repair your actions necessitated! You are definitely the victim here and we are sorry we asked you to assume responsibility when it is clearly our responsibility to pay your bill AND to make you feel okay about it."

4. To the Dolores Umbrage/Laura Bush figure, who came to my college this week to tell me how indoctrinating students to be good little capitalists under a corporate model is for the good of the academy and indeed the nation: how would you like me to present the assessment results of my students' ability to deconstruct precisely the kind of racist, nationalistic, fascist bullshit you're shilling?

Tuesday, December 04, 2007

Cribs, Academic Edition

So while I love my MTV Cribs, I generally find the homes to be cavernous and the decor to be sterile and depressing. The one thing I truly truly covet, besides the tricked out rides (give me a break, my grandfather was a mechanic and truck driving is my heritage), is the plasma t.v. on the bathroom wall across from the bathtub. Dudes! You can watch movies while you soak in the bath (or "have a tub-tub" as My Two Dads would say.) I actually think about this possibility, and this lack, in my day-to-day life.

Problem solved:

This is the "dollhouse bathroom" in my attic home, so named because it is tiny and situated in an eave. I know the tile is hideous--do you know how much an attic costs in this town?--but I kind of love it.

Saturday, December 01, 2007

7 things meme

I've been tagged for a meme by a curmudgeonly fellow! And so because I have 42 ungraded research papers sitting beside me, here goes!The rules:

1. Link to the person that tagged you and post the rules on your blog.2. Share 7 random and/or weird things about yourself.3. Tag 7 random people at the end of your post and include links to their blogs.4. Let each person know that they have been tagged by leaving a comment on their blog. On it.

My seven randoms and/or weirds:

1. I was a competitive gymnast. I lost my cherry to a balance beam.2. I am a claustrophobic.3. One day in the grade school lunchroom, after having watched Sarah T., Portrait of a Teenage Alcoholic on television, I told everyone at my table that I had vodka in my thermos. This prompted the first of many visits to the offices of various school principals, lasting into my high school years. It also forever proved to me that I am exactly the wrong audience for PSAs, after-school specials, and any film warning of drug and alcohol abuse. I am the only person I know, for example, who wanted to try heroin after watching Trainspotting. I didn't, but I wanted to. 4. I scootch way down in the bed when I sleep, making sure my feet are hanging just a touch over the foot of the bed.5. I met my first boyfriend in Guadalajara when I was 13. I still love him.6. When I was in college, I worked as an artist's model. This is a painting of me.7. I don't like chocolate.

About Me

mir-ror n. 1. A surface capable of reflecting sufficient undiffused light to form a virtual image of an object placed in front of it. 2. Something that faithfully reflects or gives a true picture of something else. Also called "looking glass."
pro-fess v. 1. to affirm openly; declare or claim. 2. to make a pretense of; pretend.
re-flect v. 1. to throw or bend back (light, for example) from a surface. 2. to form an image of (an object); mirror.